back to article Facebook replaces non-Facebook mail addresses on Timeline

Over the weekend Mark Zuckerberg's recently floated company began quietly displaying @Facebook email addresses on all of its users' Timelines. The move immediately sparked anger from Facebookers, who complained that their third party email account names – such as Gmail or Hotmail – had been unceremoniously replaced without …

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  1. That Awful Puppy
    Coat

    All your email are belong to us

    Etc etc.

    Gettin me coat.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All your email are belong to us

      Careful, you might find they've taken your coat too.

  2. JDX Gold badge

    I have a FaceBook email address, but I've no idea what it is or how I access it. And I don't want my email address shown on FB anyway.

    I am a bit surprised FB are even promoting email, rather than DM/PM functionality.

    1. Nota bene
      FAIL

      Ahh, but that's the point. The FB email address goes to FB Messages so it is keeping you on their site as much as possible. Many FB changes are mildly irritating, this one is extremely annoying. I mean it's not like it's easy to guess for spammers to use now is it? Oh, wait...

      1. James Micallef Silver badge
        Meh

        Also, I'm sure FB would be very happy to allow you to export all your contacts from FB under the form of <contact>@facebook.com . It allows external apps / sites to pull some info from it, but ultimately it's encouraging the use of @facebook.com emails and driving more traffic to it's own site.

        It also makes sense to integrate Facebook messages with email, phones have been doing this for ages (also with Twitter feeds, sms etc). It makes sense that a message is a message irrespective of delivery mechanism, and I'm sure the user can always sort them out if they want to.

        So, yeah, not impressed by FB being pushy and secretive about this, but no surprise either, and frankly I think the majority of their users will welcome it

  3. Michael Hutchinson
    Meh

    And no mention in the article of how to change it back (if you wanted to for whatever reason).

    In the email settings there's an option to hide from timeline, which has been set on all non fb email addresses, easy to change back if you're that way inclined.

    Still, they shouldn't have blanket changed everyone's settings without notification anyway.

  4. jeremyjh
    Pint

    Fixed it!

    Thankfully, you can override this change by going in and hiding the facebook 'email address' and unhiding your proper email.

    Not that that excuses it.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: Fixed it!

      I don't use Timeline

      1. StooMonster

        Re: Fixed it!

        I don't use Facebook.

        1. TRT
          Devil

          Re: Fixed it!

          Facebook is evil.

          1. TheOtherHobbes
            Angel

            Re: Fixed it!

            I don't use evil.

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. nation of stupid
          FAIL

          Re: Fixed it!

          Why in an article about Facebook is there always has to be someone who puts in the time and effort to tell the world he doesn't use Facebook rather than just not reading the supposedly irrelevant article. The same with Twitter/Windows/OSX/iPhone/iPad/Android/Blackberry/Phone 7/BBC/Sky/ITV/etc.

          I mean, if I read news or reviews of a Ford Mondeo there isn't anyone who posts just to point out they don't drive one.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Fixed it!

            And there's always someone who tells everyone that there's someone who doesn't use Facebook. If someone not using Facebook means nothing to you, then move along

          2. Ole Juul

            Re: Fixed it!

            Why in an article about Facebook is there always has to be someone who puts in the time and effort to tell the world he doesn't use Facebook rather than just not reading the supposedly irrelevant article.

            It's educational and they are leading by example.

            Ten Points About Facebook

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Fixed it!

            @nation of stupid

            Schadenfreude.

      2. David Gosnell

        Re: Fixed it!

        > I don't use Timeline

        Nothing to do with Timeline or not. Non-timelined users are affected as much as anyone.

  5. AbortRetryFail
    Thumb Down

    Opt in vs Opt out

    Yet again Facebook demonstrates it doesn't understand the concept of 'Opt in'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Opt in vs Opt out

      You Opt-ed in when you joined signed over your s... I mean joined twitterbook+.

    2. Hieronymus Howerd

      Re: Opt in vs Opt out

      On the contrary, they understand it very clearly indeed.

    3. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
      Unhappy

      Re: Opt in vs Opt out

      Yet again Facebook demonstrates it doesn't understand the concept of 'Opt in'

      Fixed it for you

      Yet again Facebook demonstrates it doesn't give a flying fuck about the concept of 'Opt in'

  6. Tony W

    Yet another email address

    So they have given me an email address, without telling me. So I will never see the email that tells me I have won $100000000 on a lottery that I didn't enter. Such is life.

    1. John I'm only dancing

      Re: Yet another email address

      Or how to improve your sexual performance, enlarge your penis and god forbid, help you with all those PPI claims.

  7. iCode86
    FAIL

    Email address is worthless...

    ...without POP / IMAP access. Else it just becomes another recepticle for off-site spam.

    1. Ian Michael Gumby
      Devil

      Re: Email address is worthless...

      What makes you think that there isn't IMAP or POP access?

      The point of the facebook email address is to tie you to their system and to capture more information about you from your emails. Just like Google does with gmail.

      1. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

        Re: Email address is worthless...

        In fact it is so worthless that I will be using it any where the spam harvesters can get at it. It will also be handy for all those sites that ask for email address, so much more convenient than setting up another snotmail or gmail address.

  8. Allan George Dyer
    Devil

    Delivery?

    So where does the @facebook.com address deliver to? I've found it: Messages

    Now that I've disabled it, messages from anyone else get bounced with, "Based on the email preferences of the person you're trying to email, this message could not be delivered."

    It's arrogance: Zuckerberk can't imagine that some people don't stay logged into facebook all the time, or might, in fact, go days without visiting.

    1. Hieronymus Howerd

      Re: Delivery?

      On the contrary, he can imagine it all too well. Which is why things like this happen.

  9. Joseph Lord
    Big Brother

    Not just timeline - normal profiles too

    Zuckerburg really doesn't want us communicating directly without CCing him!

    1. Minophis
      Devil

      Re: Not just timeline - normal profiles too

      Oooooh that's a good idea. After all we now have Mark Zuckerburg's email address. If he wants email we can give him lots and lots. Mwaaaa ha ha haaaa!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not just timeline - normal profiles too

      'Zuckerburg and Mossad/NSA really doesn't want us communicating directly without BCCing him/them!'

      There, fixed that for you..

  10. Reading Your E-mail

    Calling all lawyers

    Isn't this illegal interception of e-mails? Didn't phorm do something like this and get crucified for it?

  11. f1rest0rm

    @ Calling all lawyers

    Whilst it looks very much like a Phorm-style MITM attack I imagine it's covered in the Ts and Cs ...

    1. Ted 3
      Stop

      Re: @ Calling all lawyers

      "I imagine it's covered in the Ts and Cs"

      Just because it is covered in the T&Cs does not mean that it is enforceable. The terms and conditions must be reasonable, or else they are invalid. For example, there is a clause buried in the T&C's that by signing up you are giving up your first born child and also your liver for a live liver transplant, this would be ruled as invalid due to being unreasonable or unfair. Should someone feel strongly enough about this issue, they could have it tested in court, even if it was in the T&Cs.

      Sadly, in order to point out such a clause is unfair/unreasonable, you would need to call a lawyer, thereby enriching not just your lawyer, but the defending company's lawyer as well. Oh well, such is life.

  12. RISC OS
    Devil

    Google moaning that people now have to use @facebook addresses....

    ...hmmm last time I bothered to try out google plus I had to use a gmail adress to do it.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I don't see a problem....

    Personally I don't see what the fuss is about, could be considered a useful security feature as it allows Facebook friends to send you emails without publishing a 'real' email address.

    My Facebook page is totally open to all as I only post information I want made public and don't trust Zuckerberg et al to keep anything private ;). So this just gives me another 'burn email' to use on sites I suspect of selling to spammers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I don't see a problem....

      It's not a problem until you need to get in touch with someone, their phone isn't working, they rarely check facebook and the email address they once had listed on facebook is gone without their knowledge, replaced with an email address they rarely check (i.e. facebook).

      I thought this social networking thing was supposed to facilitate communication, not hinder it.

    2. Nota bene
      FAIL

      Re: I don't see a problem....

      Useful security feature? I think not. It's a massive spam magnet as it can be so easily found.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I don't see a problem....

        i assume zuck and friends have got a fairly impressive spam filter built in, otherwise it will quickly become pointless as most people will turn it off.

        If the spam filter works fine then I have absolutely no problem with this currently.

        However, my concern would be that this is an attempt at a kind of walled garden and way of limiting ways facebook users communicate. Once they've removed other methods of communicating surely the next logical step is for them to try to begin to charge for messaging?

  14. LiteWeight72
    Childcatcher

    Calm down dears....

    ...the emails sent to the address are turned into Facebook messages... you don't have to use the facebook email address you can use your current one. But it's just not displayed by default now.

    In the grand scheme of things, this is a non-news item...made news by silly people moaning about changes to a social network you don't have to fund your usage of with cold hard cash.

    1. Nota bene
      FAIL

      Re: Calm down dears....

      I'm not sure that you get it. Suddenly everyone on FB has an easily guessed pseudo* email address. This makes it a huge spam magnet. FB have also in their infinite wisdom put this as the default display on all users profiles, even for those who have chosen not to show any email address at all, replacing anyone's real email address that was previously displayed. Now suddenly people may find that instead of getting emails sent to their real email they end up in FB messages instead. This is 5 star arrogance.

      *pseudo because it delivers to FB Messages instead of an actual real email account.

      1. Tom 7

        Re: Calm down dears....

        5 star stupidity

        FB will have to manage the 500gbyte of spam then - I'm not going near it.

      2. Dan Beshear
        FAIL

        Re: Calm down dears....

        I guess I'm still missing the point of the brouhaha.

        You've had an @facebook.com address since you signed up for Facebook all those years ago. Any spammer worth a sh¡t (granted this qualifier would exclude 99% of them) should have already been spamming this email address. I haven't seen any spam in the Messages. None.

        I just checked my email addresses in Facebook. The Facebook.com address is NOT my primary address, in contradiction to this report.

        Sounds like more bitching just to be bitching.

  15. Nigel Brown
    Joke

    Mark Zuckerberg's wedding reception was going well. But, just as everyone had got used to the seating arrangement, he changed the layout for no apparent reason. ...

    1. Not_The_Droids
      Go

      Change Places!

      Bit of a Futurama-esque activity, eh? http://fchangeplaces.ytmnd.com/

  16. Purlieu

    OMG

    I have an @facebook email address now so I'm a TARD awesome bigtime WTF !!111!!1AA!a1

  17. Callam McMillan
    FAIL

    Failbook - We've gotta justify our $70bn Market Valuation

    From what I can tell this is really all about money. Facebook's market value is currently just shy of $70bn and yet as I wrote around the time they have very little to support that valuation. As such they need to massively increase their revenues which means driving as much traffic into the site as possible.

    My solution is to use an ad-blocker when I have to use facebook to stay in touch with my foreign relatives and to use it less otherwise. The funny thing being that my social life is no better or worse without facebook than with it, which only seems to prove that it's a load of rubbish anyway!

  18. Jan Hargreaves
    Big Brother

    Andriod

    Amazing... thought Andriod was so popular... yet no-one seems to have noticed the FAR WORSE action facebook did. On an Andriod phone, they have replaced the primary email address of all your facebook friends with the new facebook email instead.

    I'm glad I'm not on facebook, and I don't have a "smart" phone either, but my friend was absolutely livid over this.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Andriod

      Or a lot of people like me don't let FB sync our phonelist and so we've not noticed this.

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Coat

        Re: Andriod

        Yup, you'd have to be a zucker for punishment to do that.

  19. Tony 34
    Big Brother

    Bullseye

    Perfectly targeted at facebook users like me.

    The only reason I have a facebook account is to display my contact details, especially my e-mail, on my facebook profile so that people I know who are into facebook can contact me.

    I only ever log in to accept friend requests.

    I only ever accept friend requests from people I know so that they will have a way to find my e-mail address which is on my profile.

    I suspect I am not the only one who uses facebook in this way.

    I bet there are a few people who, having not been notified of this will have not changed their e-mail back, and will miss some very important messages due to this complete wankiness. Facebook really don't give a shit about their users, sorry, victims.

    Grrrrr.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bullseye

      Same here, I just needed some info. Really didn't want an FB account but I wanted to find out what my favourite underground bands were up to, gig dates, music releases, etc.

      Mr Zuck has my nickname, my proper email, an incorrect DOB and a mobile phone number. The mobile number is on a crappy £20 phone and PAYG thing I got for when I go to gigs, in case the phone gets stolen. He's not getting my "real" day-to-day mobile.

  20. Heathroi
    Facepalm

    that could be why the settings and other controls are not exactly 'hidden' but buried or listed in a goofball way.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Not such a grand idea

    I've no problem with the FB e-mail address as such. It links to my messages and e-mails are not accepted from anyone who isn't already allowed to message me. So no spam issues.

    What definitely is not right is the fact that this easily guessable e-mail address also serves as a username when logging in (and this can't be stopped), thus reducing what was already weak security to a really shit level.

  22. The FunkeyGibbon
    FAIL

    Out of control?

    Facebook used to do Social Networking. Now it wants to be an e-mail service, identity service and God only knows what else!

    Whatever happened to designing something for a purpose and not having massive mission creep...?

  23. Velv
    Big Brother

    Cost?

    If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer.

    You're the product being sold.

  24. heyrick Silver badge

    Not a big deal...

    Pretty stupid decision, as I have my email POP'd into my phone and computer, so instantly Facebook cuts out that method of communication (not that anybody emails me anyway...).

    So thanks to El Reg pointing this out, I go to my profile and edit it to display my original address and not display the facebook one. Now should anybody bother to contact me in this manner, it'll not go into some black hole pit of despair (etc).

    .

    It seems to me that Web2.0 companies just don't get how people can and want to use off-line interfaces. I recently had a phishing attempt claiming to be from Yahoo! so I thought it might be good to inform Yahoo!. But could I? All their help seems to assume you are using webmail where clicking the "spam" button does stuff. I asked for help (namely "is there an abuse@yahoo.com address?) and received a reply pointing me to...the same not-so-helpful help document.

    So in this instance, I don't anticipate Facebook to support POP3 or IMAP so I have little interest. I guess it is a nice idea to make to accessible to outside users if you're into the whole social networking thing. I'm not, so if you don't mind, I'll put my working address back into use, thank you Facebook...

  25. Graham Marsden
    FAIL

    "Facebook is also attempting to retain its users on the site"

    How? By pissing off a huge bunch of them so they go somewhere else?

    Bravo, Bitch!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook is doomed

    It fell into the trap of every successful internet firm - it wants to dominate the web.

    Unfortunately, as AOL demonstrated, nobody wants you to dominate the web. It's a web, it doesn't need a front door, SSO, centralised anything, single billing platform, single messaging system, etc, etc, etc, etc.

    There's a very long list of companies that have fallen for this.

    So there are no surprises here. Just the usual joker who got lucky with an idea once, but goes on to demonstrate they have no vision.

    Everyone knows what the Internet needs don't they, they use it every day?

  27. Dana W
    Happy

    Big shock

    Looks like I picked the right week to quit Facebook.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Big shock

      Ditto

  28. vic 4

    I invoke Zawinski's law

    Didn't know facebook did email, but never used it. But according to jamie Zawinski adding email support is the last feature that will ever be added to a piece of software*. Start of the end facebook?

    * Ok, for the pendants it is the feature to read email.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "for the pendants"

      How kind of you, looking after jewellery so considerately....

      [Recursive irony detected]

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Moan-tards

    If you're not happy, instead of moaning why not just stop using facebook and find something else. But then I suppose you'd have one less thing to moan about and we can't have that!

  30. microfarmer
    Flame

    Foobarmail for sure

    But facebook mail is so efficient, the internet needs more of it. [sarcasm]

    It was great when one of their SMTP's was spitting out a looping fireball of email to one customer address, 10 per second, for days and there was no postmaster services at Facebook to try to report their issue. Eventually it switched over to another IP address, and weeks after it started it stopped.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Because your have to be an idiot to use timeline to gain an email address to get hold of your supposed best friend. Must be a sad life when the only form of getting hold of your 100K best friends is to search their timeline for their email.....

    not sure why people find this so bad. you are using their service and not paying you can complain when you start paying for it.

    If FB changed their logo colour is that something you have a say in? As someone who works for a company I know as a consumer you use their service on their terms....

    Thumbs up because I like seeing how up in arms people get when something so small in their life changes while simultaneously complaining its not changing enough.

  32. Doug Bostrom

    Classy address; "@aol.com"

    Like?

  33. dullboy

    Open the XMPP servers

    Hey Facebook, wanna help your users communicating? Federate the bloody XMPP service. Thank you.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zucker's programme of infantisation of the gentiles continues......

  35. Great Bu

    And it' immortal too.....

    Not only have they provided me with an e-mail address I don't want or need but it's impossible to delete it from my list of e-mail addresses associated with my FB account. Undoubtedly this is all covered in the T&C's for FB but that won't stop me mailing a turd a week to Zuckerberg (much more effective in making a point than some DDoS attack).

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